


i'm a can on a string, you're on the end

by hideyseek



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Community: inceptiversary, Couches, Eggs, Humor, M/M, Mild Language, POV Eames (Inception), Phone Calls & Telephones, but i couldn't stop laughing while i wrote them so, reference to: none pizza with left beef, that one trope where nobody in dreamshare can fucking get a full night's rest, the jokes in this are really dubious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-02 14:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20277148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hideyseek/pseuds/hideyseek
Summary: Eames calls Arthur to tell him stupid jokes when he's having trouble falling asleep. And then he stops. And then Ariadne and Yusuf make fun of him. And then there's some texting.





	i'm a can on a string, you're on the end

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as part of my participation in Inceptiversary Bingo 2019, my “one missed call” square. 
> 
> Many and several thanks to musingsofaretiredunicorn for beta-ing and fulfilling my dreams of having editing banter in Google Docs comments. One large, singular thank to D for the bread joke(s).
> 
> Title from Phoebe Bridgers’ Would You Rather. The song is much sadder than this fic, listen  here if you like.
> 
> If there are odd bits you notice and would like to point out, please do. If there are things here you'd like tagged, do let me know. We like it when folks are able to read things safely and comfortably!

Some expository facts:

i. Eames is a purveyor of shitty jokes.

He collects them mainly by eavesdropping, sometimes from Reddit, but most often makes them in his own stupidly awake brain at ass o’clock in the morning. He stores them until he can deliver them to Arthur’s horribly un-Reddited mind via telephone or in person.

His most recent favorite joke goes like this:

The person initiating the joke says,_ Why did the train crash?_ The person experiencing the joke says, _Why?_ The first person explains, _Because the conductor was a loaf of bread!_ And then they both chuckle pleasantly, if confusedly, and continue about their day.

It’s a little morbid and makes almost no sense, and Eames adores it to bits.

-

ii. Eames and Arthur work together often.

Usually often enough that any Arthurian absence is never the case for more than a couple of weeks, a few months at most. But they haven’t worked together in almost a year, and Eames has un-coincidentally been spending an increasing proportion of his life lying awake when he means to be asleep, contemplating his personal choices.

Because usually when he means to annoy Arthur into paying attention to him - usually when he fails to fall asleep at a reasonable time - he phones him. Maybe some weird, Pavlovian response to Arthur’s voice following that damned, “Go to sleep, Mr. Eames,” on the inception job. Anyway. Usually the phone calls go something like this:

_Ring, ring._

“Hello,” says Arthur, because he’s a paranoid bastard.

“Did you order a pizza?” says Eames instead of _Hey_, “I’ve got a plain pie with beef sausage bits on half of it and nothing else.”__

_ __ _

__

“Is this about work,” says Arthur, because he’s terribly focused on his job all of the time. Eames is terribly endeared by it all of the time. “If it’s not, I’m hanging up on you.”

“Yes,” says Eames, because he doesn’t want the conversation to end.

“Really,” says Arthur, like he’s daring Eames to spin this into something involving dreamshare. He makes scribbly noises like he’s taking notes or something.

“Yeah,” says Eames, thinking hard. “Sure.” Variety is the spice of life, so he’s told.

“I have better things to be doing, you know,” Arthur threatens. “I don’t know what they are, but I know they densely populate my varied and interesting existence.”

“Darling,” says Eames, though sometimes it’s pet, or duck or sunshine. “Darling, have you been on Reddit recently?”

“Eames,” says Arthur, like a warning.

Then Eames will tell Arthur about a joke he saw or some new and awful fact he’s learned, and Arthur will pretend he’s not listening and do his best not to react. Arthur’s quiet splutter when Eames had explained the corkscrew shape of duck penises is something Eames will cherish for the rest of his life.

And then Arthur will say, “I’m hanging up on you, Eames,” with a tone of voice that almost sounds like he’s smothering a smile. “Goodnight.”

And then Eames will say, “You don’t know at all that it’s anywhere near my bedtime, darling,” even though he only ever calls Arthur then.

And then Arthur will say, more firmly and less amusedly, “Goodnight, Eames. I’m going back to work.”

And then Eames will say, “Have a lovely time, dear,” and fall asleep to the dial tone.

Perfectly enjoyable, exceptionally soothing. The sort of easygoing banter that Eames enjoys with any of his coworkers but with Arthur most of all. And after the inception job, something between them had shifted, tension easing into an almost relaxed reliance on each other. The sort of relaxed reliance that shouldn’t be disturbed by the occasional late-night phone call.

And Eames would do it, except. Except.

They’d ordered in on the last job in California, for lunch one day. Not unusual. Arthur’s mouth in a faintly dissatisfied moue, fingertips incessant on his Blackberry. Texting. The extractor, Liu, impervious or willfully ignorant in the way that extractors often are, dumping takeout cartons onto the hotel room desk. The chemist already gone off on the next job.

Arthur had nabbed one of the moo ping, eyes not leaving his phone screen. Eames, spooning pineapple fish into a carton already mostly full of pad thai, had taken the opportunity to look at Arthur more closely than usually possible during a job. The man had an uncanny sense of when he was being observed.

He was perched uncomfortably in the hotel room chair, one leg crossed over the other to display his gorgeous dress boots, his absent waistcoat the only allowance for the hotel-ness of it all. Phone in one hand. Pork skewer held carefully in the other, tilted to keep it from dripping grease. Hair gelled soullessly back, because even on three-day jobs working eighteen-hour days Arthur was never anything but put together and ridiculously polished.

Arthur had put his mouth around the skewer, slid his teeth down it in a manner adjacent to absent-minded. Eames could see the bamboo running along the edge of his canine, against the curved, wet gloss of his lip. Arthur had glanced up, met Eames’ darkened eyes for a heartbeat, flushed hard. His eyes back down again quick enough to steal Eames’ breath. Still eating his pork skewer.

A slow and careful demolition that Eames had watched. And watched, and watched.

Afterward, post-extraction, Arthur had hurried and Eames had tarried, evening out the time. On their way out of the hotel room, Arthur had set his hand against Eames’ shoulder for a moment, a warm patch seeping through the linen to heat his skin. He’d smiled slightly, “Good working with you again, Mr. Eames.” Affection, in that indistinguishably Arthurian way of his.

Then the usual - different flights - followed by the unusual - a sudden, startling year of silence. That parting makes Eames antsy and anxious whenever he thinks about it too hard. That is to say, whenever he thinks about it at all.

-

iii. Eames is maybe, possibly, a tiny bit in love with Arthur.

It was mostly an accident, helped along by Arthur’s posh clothing and his dry, clever humor and his entire fucking beautiful face. And whatever the hell that had been in California. Not helped along by the entire fucking year of silence.

Eames spends most of his waking hours between 2 and 5 a.m. thinking about Arthur’s entire fucking beautiful face. He spends all of his waking hours after 5 a.m. worrying about the entire fucking year of silence.

\--

It’s a Monday night.

Well. Charitably speaking, it’s Tuesday morning, but since Eames has - since Sunday - yet to hit any extended period of unconsciousness, it’s better to pretend it’s Monday still.

He calls Ariadne because he’s awake and it’s 2:17 a.m. his time and 7:17 a.m. her time and he wants a distraction from his Arthur-related overthinking.

When she picks up, he realizes this is not the best reason for making an international call. Mainly because he can’t bring himself to say it out loud.

“Hello Eames,” she says, pleasantly enough. “What’s up?” It sounds vaguely like she’s eating. Breakfast, maybe. Because she’s just woken up, and breakfast is how normal people start their day after a full night of sleep.

Eames is abruptly hungry. “Are you eating something?” he asks, saved from having to make up a reason for this call.

“No,” says Ariadne, swallowing. “Are you calling me for a reason?"

“No,” says Eames, panicking. “Are you calling me for a reason?”

“Eames,” chides Ariadne, making a noise akin to someone putting a forkful of scrambled egg into their mouth.

“Ariadne,” mocks Eames, for lack of any better rejoiner. Then, “Do you want to hear a joke?”

“Isn’t that an Arthur thing?” says Ariadne, like it’s nothing. What the fuck, thinks Eames. Her voice is slightly muffled. Eames assumes it’s the eggs.

“Not… really,” Eames hedges, recovering. “In fact, no.” He’s slipping a bit on the couch and growing jittery. The conversation has gotten much weirder than he’d expected. Arthur’s in it, for one.

Ariadne is good enough to pretend Eames isn’t outright lying. “Okay. Well, Arthur’s in the US right now, so it’ll be his gross five o’clock morning in three hours at least.”

“That is,” Eames mutters, “not quite as reassuring as you might imagine.” Three hours is a long wait even without the anticipation of an awkward and possibly unwanted phone conversation on the other end of it. He falls into silence, interrupted occasionally by breakfast-y noises from Ariadne’s line.

“Well, I’ve got work,” Ariadne announces eventually. “Because it is a Tuesday, and some of us still rely on gainful employment to eke out a living.” A pause, in which Eames does not speak. “Goodbye,” prompts Ariadne.

“Oh,” he says, “Bye.”

Eames hangs up, feeling slightly off-balance. He definitely hadn’t introduced Arthur into that conversation.

\--

He doesn’t call Yusuf a half hour later because he’s still awake and exhausted. He just needs to try something, to see if his odd, haphazard hypothesis has any merit. Yusuf is a scientist - he’s likely to appreciate the intention.

“Yusuf,” says Eames into the phone, carefully, “Do you want to hear a joke?”

“No, asshole,” says Yusuf. “It’s four o’clock in the morning here. I want to murder you and then go back to sleep. Go call Arthur, he finds this shit endearing. And also he’s far more scared of personal rejection than professional rejection but I didn’t tell you that.”

“Really,” says Eames, suddenly awake. “Really?”

“No,” says Yusuf. “I like to lie to you about our scary, mutual coworkers because I want to be disemboweled at an inconvenient moment in the next week. He’s weird about people knowing him but with you it’s starting to seem less and less like a big deal.”

“I personally feel like being disemboweled is inconvenient no matter when it happens,” Eames remarks, to keep the conversation going. He’d read a book about the benefits of ‘I’ statements the other day. Internally, he’s doing something extremely similar to screaming.

“Go call Arthur,” says Yusuf, “This conversation is putting me back to sleep,” and hangs up.

Oh my god, thinks Eames. Oh my god!

\--

He calls Arthur at the top of the next hour. He likes it when things happen at round times like that. They feel more suitable, like the kind of proper clean start unachievable within one’s lifespan.

“Listen,” says Eames to Arthur’s voicemail at 3:02am, “listen. I’ve got the funniest joke for you. I don’t care if you don’t want to hear it but honestly at this point I think you do.”

He’s draped across his couch in his boxers and long socks with little watermelon slices on them, quietly congratulating himself for purchasing a fancy and comfortable couch. He might be whispering, actually.

The leather slides pleasantly over his back when he shifts around and says, blearily and more loudly, “Is it 4am where you are? I suppose I can’t have gotten so lucky, to happen into the same time zone as you, darling. Anyway, you have to be dead on your feet for this to be funny, so if you're not, stop this message until you are.”

Silence. The clatter of rainwater running down the pipes along the outside of the hotel building. Eames quietly hopes Arthur never listens to this joke - he works too hard usually, and a break would do him good. This seems prudent to say aloud: “Not that I hope you are, duck. You shouldn’t work yourself so hard. A break would do you good.”

More silence. Eames gets halfway to worrying about how blunt he’s being and then mentally drifts for a bit before he seizes on his train of thought again. Another, smaller train of thought considers that this voicemail may be somewhat tortuous to listen to. His main train of thought continues.

"But the joke goes like this - why was the loaf of bread driving the train?" A pause, wherein Eames snickers a little bit, thinking about the punchline. Then, "Fuck! Darling, delete this, delete this! I've cocked it up, that's not how the joke goes. Pretend you didn't hear this! I'll text it to you instead."

He fumbles with his phone for a bit, finally manages to send, _y did the train crash?_, and: _THE CONDYCTR WAS A LOAF OF BREAD!_ Then he drops his phone off the edge of the couch so he can’t agonize over what he’s just done, and tries to sidle into unconsciousness.

-

Arthur texts back at 5:43 the next morning. Eames is unfortunately still awake, in that awful state where he’s so tired he can feel it in the teeth at the back of his mouth. He’s still on his couch in his boxers, hoping desperately to fall asleep if he can swing his brain sideways around into it.

Eames spends several ungainly moments trying to hoist his phone off the floor without rolling off the couch, then finally gives in and nabs it from his prone position on the carpet. He looks at his phone screen.

_I’m in Maine, same time zone as you. :)_ And: _Is it very bad that the first thing I thought after not laughing at your terrible joke, is that Cobb wouldn’t be amused by it?_

Eames immediately responds: _very very bad, darling_. Frankly, ‘I’ statements can get fucked when the sentiment is universally true. He grins to himself at his sauciness and nuzzles his cheek into the rug a bit, considering.

Arthur doesn’t usually text his coworkers. The first job they had worked, Arthur had been glued to his phone, and Eames once, offhand, had asked him if he was so disloyal, already pinning down his next gig.

“My mom wants to know if I can go hang out with my grandma for a weekend so she can go skiing,” Arthur had said, angry. “What the fuck it is to you?”  
Eames had been extremely intrigued after that, to say the least - Arthur is incredibly normal for someone who works in dreamshare. Eames suspects that most of this is helped by the fact that he only takes calls from coworkers - less of a trail that way.

But Arthur texts again, gloriously, at 6:06: _Eames! Why was the loaf of bread driving the train?_

Eames, confused, squints at the text for several minutes and finally sends back: _wat? darling, joke dsnt go like tht. i told u alrdy_

Arthur, a bit past eight, texts, _Because they were CRUSTworthy!! :D_

Eames smiles extremely hard at his screen and falls asleep like that on the floor, his phone clutched to his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact from behind-the-scenes: I had a bit of a dilemma about whether to use “couch” or “sofa” in this but then the internet helpfully reminded me that coucher means “to sleep” in French and that seemed _extremely_ on brand so I left it.
> 
> Listen to me yell about fic-writing (and, if you like, yell with me!) in real-time on tumblr: @hideyseek


End file.
